There it was.
The soft whisper of my breath was all that could be heard beneath the steady beating of his heart in his chest. The answer was there and there was no avoiding it for long. Could I risk the lives of others when I knew they would fail where he would succeed?
Damn him to hell but he was probably right.
Chapter 5
Life at Mostyn was decidedly dull.
It had taken me all of five minutes to figure that out and since wherever I went a crowd followed me, I found what solitude I could at the home Lily had made her own. Though there was little of that with the children and Lily sticking close by my side.
To my surprise, I didn’t mind it.
Our children were remarkable, and while Lily assured me that all parents felt the same way about their children, mine actually were.
Gabriel, all bright eyes and laughter. Every moment of his day seemed to be filled with joy and, like my brother for whom he was named, he had a likeable quality to him that would allow him to make friends wherever he went.
I had chosen his name when I thought I was dying and, while I was certain there was no guilt over the murder of my brother, I knew that it would please my sister and mother. With death drawing close, it seemed right to do that, and what that meant I couldn’t say.
Angelina, on the other hand, was like looking in a mirror. As though some cosmic being had moulded her from the darkness I carried as some spiteful answer to my murdering ways. If I had believed in any such being, I would have been annoyed. As it was, I could only feel an ache in my chest as I looked at her and wonder at what it meant.
Lily wasn’t ready to see it. She suspected and likely feared it, but I could tell with just a single glance into those dark, hooded, eyes, full of suspicion and mistrust. She carried a darkness like my own and her world was one of shadows and pain.
The people that surrounded her, even her brother, would be alien to her. I had watched her sit for hours, as she watched those people around her, studying them as though trying to understand just how they seemed to know things with an ease that escaped her.
It had not yet happened, I was sure of that, but soon enough she would take a life and she would gain a glimpse into their world. A sliver of understanding of what joy was, of happiness. Then everything would change.
Her life would be over. She would endure the world of the living, and perhaps even learn how to pass for one of those people around her, but she would never truly be part of it. She wouldn’t understand it and she would not be able to resist that insistent urge to kill, to take a life and feel alive, even if just for a short time.
Gabriel’s laughter broke through my solemn thoughts and I glanced up, smile tugging at the corners of my mouth as my son ran past, little arms pumping as Pat, Cass’s daughter, chased him with a wide grin on her face.
“You should join them,” I said, turning my gaze towards my daughter, sitting on the grass to my right.
“Why?”
A good question and one that I didn’t really have the answer to. As a child, I would never have been interested in joining in the play of my peers. How then could I argue for why she join them?
“You might have fun?” Unlikely, but worth a try.
Angelina turned her nose up as she narrowed her gaze and looked up at me. Darkness swirled in her eyes, not quite able to hide something cold and very familiar to me.
“No.”
Fair enough.
She turned back to her book as my smile faltered. Yes, there was entirely too much in her that I recognised, and I knew what that would mean for her as she grew up in a world that wouldn’t understand her.
If she was lucky, the people of her community would simply avoid her, considering her to be strange. But most likely they would fear her, and drive her out, perhaps even try to harm her.
I couldn’t allow that to happen.
“Do you have the knife I gave you?”
“Mama has it.”
No real emotion to that statement. She wasn’t angry about it, nor was she happy. It was just how it was.
“I’ll talk to her,” I said, watching her thoughtfully. “Would you like me to teach you how to use it?”
For the first time her eyes lit up with something like emotion and I offered her a slight smile. Whether she recognised herself in me, I couldn’t know, but I had some small hope that she would feel enough kinship to trust me.
Even though I never had with my family.
“Yes.”
“Then I shall.”
She cocked her head to the side as she stared up at me, as though contemplating my words and trying to decide whether I was telling her the truth. After a moment that stretched on far longer than I liked, she heaved a soft sigh and went back to reading her book.
Guess I failed her assessment. Which was disheartening, but something I should have expected. She didn’t know me any more than I knew her. I was a stranger who she had been told was her father. There was no reason for her to consider me any more or less than the other people she might see each day.
I turned, hand moving to my belt as the door opened behind me, and I relaxed as Lily stepped through, beaming brightly. I returned her smile for just a moment but soon lost it as my sister came through the door behind her.
Eyes wide, Evelyn stared at me, mouth hanging open like some fish that had just been pulled ashore. She had aged somewhat in the long years since I had seen her last, and it was disturbing how much I noticed that. With so much time between seeing the people I knew, it was easy to see the differences that they had become accustomed to.
For Lily, she would just see my sister, her friend. For me, it was like seeing a different person. As though I had stepped through a portal from the past to the future, the time in between passing in the blink of an eye.
I shook my head to clear them of such dismal thoughts and braced myself for the strained conversation about to come.
She had cut her deep black hair short like she had shaved her head entirely and it was only just starting to grow back. A look that I had seen several others sport but had not expected from her. My sister had always put much stock in her appearance and, being an objectively beautiful woman, her hair had always been carefully maintained.
“Sister.”
“You’re alive. I wanted to believe but…”
Were those tears in her eyes? Oh, how I hoped for some emergency to happen to free me from the utterly pointless encounter.
“You are well?”
“I- yes, yes, I am well. Thank you.”
Why did she seem so surprised at that? Even Lily’s eyes had widened slightly as though caught off guard.
“Lily told me that Father died. It must have been upsetting for you.”
She blinked and glanced at Lily, seemingly at a loss for words. Something for which I was intensely grateful. I could feel Angelina’s eyes boring holes into the side of my face as she stared intently, suddenly curious about the interaction.
“It was, yes,” Evelyn said, voice soft and filled with what I thought was sorrow. “Mum’s well and hopes to see you again soon but wasn’t up to the trip.”
“I shall make time to visit her when next on the island,” I assured her, hoping for the conversation to end.
Evelyn stared at me for what seemed an age as I wondered whether it would cause a problem with Lily if I just got up and walked away. Finally, she shook her head.
“You’ve changed.”
“It has been a number of years.”
“Yes, but it’s different. You’re different.”
“I am?”
“You wouldn’t have volunteered to visit mum or comment on how I felt about dad dying.”
All I could do was shrug at that. It wasn’t like I felt any different than I had before but as I glanced back at my daughter, watching intently, I knew that for her to be able to fit in, she would need to learn how to act.
Easiest way for her to learn was to show her.
; “The vaccine arrived safely,” Lily said, stepping past my sister and changing the subject swiftly. “It is being tested while the data is scrutinized and, all being well, we will start producing it.”
“It works,” I told her, rapidly losing interest in the conversation.
“How can you be sure?” Evelyn asked.
“Stopped me from turning when I was bitten.”
“What!”
Both women seemed surprised at that and I flashed a grin their way as I enjoyed their surprise.
“You didn’t tell me that!” Lily snapped, before turning to my sister. “I need to get him to the island so they can check him out.”
“Why?” I asked before my sister could. “I’m alive and well.”
“It could be doing anything to you!”
“Pretty sure if it was going to do anything, it would have done so years ago when I was first injected with it.”
Lily gaped as Evelyn shook her head, silent recrimination easy to read on her face. I had seen that many times over the years.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She asked. “We’ve done little but compare our times apart and you never mentioned this.”
In truth, I had forgotten about it. After all, I was alive, and the vaccine had done its job. There was no need for me to think any more about it. Lily expected an answer though and since I didn’t really have one, I just lifted my shoulders in a half-shrug and tried to hide my amusement at their annoyance.
“We aren’t done talking about this!” she warned in a tone that suggested I would not enjoy the continuation.
“No doubt.” A thought occurred. “Abigail knew I was injected with the vaccine. She will tell you it’s safe.”
“She went to the island with the samples and the data! As you would have known if you had left the confines of this garden.”
“You said you wanted me to stay.”
Again, she stared at me, mouth hanging open before she reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose with finger and thumb. She muttered something that I couldn’t quite hear before heaving a soft sigh.
“I meant with me, here, as part of our community. I didn’t mean for you to literally just stay in this house and not leave.”
Which made sense, but still, nothing much would change if I did venture beyond the walls of the garden. People would follow me and stare, my minions would irritate me with their incessant need to try and please me, and I would watch others leave to kill the monsters of the world that I should be hunting down.
Hardly a recipe for contentment.
Again, I shrugged, and didn’t look away from the flash of anger in her eyes. I was trying to be what she wanted, a man and not a monster. It would take some time and I would adjust but I couldn’t promise that it would be a pleasant adjustment for anyone.
Least of all for me.
One thing I was certain about was that I would need to keep myself away from temptation if I wanted to have a chance of becoming the kind of man she wanted.
“Look,” Lily said, attempting negotiation judging from her tone. “Isaac will be here in a few minutes and we will be discussing the plans for attacking the parasite. You could be a lot of use.”
“I am sure you will manage without me.” After all, she had done so for several years. “I will stay out here and spend some time with our children.”
The two women exchanged a look that was entirely unreadable to me and I turned away. As much as I wanted to continue my task of ridding the world of monsters, she did not want me to. I could not be both killer and man, so I had to choose and when it came down to it, if being the man meant that I kept my family in my life, then that is what I would need to be.
It was time for the killer to be pushed down into the darkest recesses of what passed for my soul to wither and die, while the man who remained could enjoy a life with his family.
Even if it was incredibly boring.
Chapter 6
“He’s different,” Evie said, following me back into the house.
“The time stuck in the bunker was difficult and, well, what he had to do on his way here…”
“Had to do?”
I stopped, hand reaching for the door to what had once been my dining room, and looked back at the woman who had become a good friend to me. As usual, she was watching me with eyes that seemed to see right through me.
“Okay, the things he did willingly.”
“What things?”
“Look.”
I paused for a moment as I wondered just how much she was willing to forgive in her brother. At one point she had feared and hated him for what he was, and for what he had done to their brother, Gabriel. Sharing with her the things he had done may well tear apart the still healing rift that hung between them.
On the other hand, once in the room with the others, it was likely to come up anyway. So, with a heavy heart, I began to tell her in a low voice, barely more than a whisper. Her eyes widened with every fresh horror and she licked dry lips, clenching her hands into fists as she shook her head gently from side to side as though not wanting to believe it.
Finally, when I was done, she swallowed hard and said, “how can you be with him?”
“I love him.”
It was entirely likely that I always would. There was something in me that was drawn to him and I knew that he could feel it too, though I doubt he would be able to recognise it within himself. As much as I despised the religion and mysticism that Samuel had created around the two of us, I had to admit he was right about some things.
We were two sides of the same coin, made for each other and connected in a way that I could barely comprehend myself. He was my soulmate, my partner. No matter his crimes, I knew that I could forgive him for life without him was pale and dull.
Evie, watched me intently, her face blank and expression unreadable. The seconds stretched into minutes and she shook her head, lips moving though no sound came forth as she seemed to argue with herself.
“Yeah, I do too.”
A surprising revelation but one that was welcome. I flashed her a smile.
“Not always a pleasant thing, loving him, is it?”
Her face turned serious as she chewed the corner of her lower lip, eyes flicking away from mine. She, more than anyone, would understand the signals she was giving off with her body language and her shoulders slumped as she forced her gaze back to mine.
“Remember who, what, he is,” she said. “Those things that he did, he doesn’t see anything wrong with them.”
“He did them because it served a purpose.”
“No doubt, but he also enjoyed it.”
I couldn’t deny that; no matter how much I might like to try, and before I could respond, she spoke again, words that chilled me.
“You can’t constrain him.” She glanced back towards the garden where he sat out in the sun. “Whether you are doing it because you are scared of losing him or because you want to protect the world from him; the more you try to force him to become something other than what he is, the more dangerous he will become.”
“He would never hurt the children or me.”
“Not intentionally.”
A harsh warning and one that I didn’t need. He wasn’t my prisoner and while I had acted without thinking by demanding he not leave to fight the parasite, he was his own person and had never shown any hesitation in doing whatever he damned well pleased anyway.
Which made me wonder why he hadn’t just gone and done what he wanted. Why had he chosen to stay behind, to let others do the killing he so enjoyed. Why was it that his darkness seemed clearer to me since his return?
Before, it had always been there, behind his eyes. The killer would come out and that darkness manifested fully in his every movement. But since he had returned, I could see it on him, like a cloak of shadow that hung from his shoulders. It followed him wherever he was and seemed to be growing larger by the day.
“Damnit,” I whispered softly, and Evie reached out to throw an
arm around my shoulder and pull me into a close embrace.
“He will always return to you, that man you love,” Evie said, voice so low I could barely hear her. “But for him to return, he first has to leave.”
I had no answer to give to that and I pushed open the door without speaking and led the way inside to where the others waited.
Charlie chewed absently on a fingernail and rolled her eyes as she listened to Isaac speak quietly. He, in turn, was watching her terminal screen and tapping now and again with one finger. Cass sat quietly talking to one of the women Ryan had returned with, while Samuel sat with arms crossed over his chest, staring at nothing.
“Thank you for coming,” I said, waving Ryan’s sister forward. “Some of you know Evie, she is the heart and soul of our island community and if not for her incredible and tireless work with those suffering the long term effects of trauma, we would not be where we are today.”
The others nodded, though the fierce-looking young woman furrowed her brow as she glanced dismissively at Evie and then the door behind us.
“Where is he?”
“Ryan isn’t joining us,” I said, ignoring Evie’s curious glance.
Two, grunted in reply and the furrows on her brow only deepened as she scowled. Isaac looked over and shook his head before speaking.
“He knows that this is important, yeah? Clever-bastard doesn’t get to play so he takes his bat and bloody ball home, does he? I expected more from him.”
“Watch your tone!”
I almost jumped at the sharp anger in Samuel’s voice and even though he looked like a stiff breeze might knock him over, his glare was enough to halt a response from Isaac before he could speak it.
“Okay, I am sure if he has anything to add we can go and get him. For now, let’s just get things started, shall we?”
Cass, as ever, the best person I could have as my second in command. I loved her dearly and couldn’t help but admire the easy way she could calm angry voices and bring people together. There was a calmness about her that seemed to flow from her, an inner acceptance of what had happened and who she was.
“Agreed,” I said, moving swiftly on. “We have a lot to discuss, but first and foremost, Evie has news from the island.”
Killing The Dead | Book 23 | Come The End Page 4